by Zoe Chant
“I’m sorry about that.” She hesitated. “And…I’m sorry that you’re stuck with me, chief. I know you only hired me because I’m Rory’s mate.”
“True,” Buck said—not meanly, just as a simple statement of fact. “But I also told you that I’d fire you if you weren’t up to the job. And yet, here you still are.”
Now, she decided, was definitely not the time to mention her autism. “I—I promise I’ll keep working hard. I won’t hold the squad back.”
“Just don’t let Rory hold you back,” Buck said, mysteriously. Before she could ask him what he meant by that, he went on, “He did tell you everything about himself and the rest of A-squad, didn’t he? Otherwise I will kick his ass up and down this mountain.”
“Yes, he told me. Everything. He kind of had to, what with the thunder-monster and the demon-bear and everything.”
Buck stared at her. Then he turned his attention to the sky.
“One day,” he announced, apparently to the clouds, “I am going to permanently staple a radio to that boy’s forehead. Maybe then he’ll remember to actually report things.”
*Edith!* She jumped as Rory’s voice crashed through her mind. His concern washed over her like a bucket of ice water dumped on her head. *Are you okay? I’m coming, don’t worry!*
“You’re the one who’s worrying, not me,” she said out loud. She twitched, struggling to separate his emotions from hers. “And there’s no need for you to be concerned. I’m perfectly fine.”
Buck muttered a curse. “And now she’s talking to thin air too. Since when is telepathy a damn STD?”
Edith made an apologetic gesture at him, mouthing sorry as if she was on an invisible phone. She turned away a little, concentrating on her inner sense of Rory. She could feel him tearing around, throwing on clothes in a mad panic.
*I’ll be right there,* he said in her head. *I can’t believe you left her alone again!*
She was pretty sure that last bit had been addressed to Fenrir, not herself. She could feel him in her mind too, a kind of hazy mental picture of drooping ears and shamed tail.
“Don’t yell at Fenrir,” she said, a little annoyed. It wasn’t like she’d left the base again, after all. What could happen to her in the midst of the crew? “And I’m not alone. Buck’s here.”
This seemed to be the opposite of reassuring, as far as Rory was concerned.
“It’s all right,” she added quickly. “He’s not mad.”
“Buck is very mad,” Buck corrected her. “Buck is just very good at suppressing his emotions, for which everyone should be heartily grateful. Is Buck going to continue to have this conversation in the third person and through a third party, or might a certain squad boss deign to put in an appearance sometime before noon?”
“Um.” Edith eyed the chief. “On second thought, Rory, maybe you’d better hurry up.”
Rory turned up in person less than thirty seconds later. He had his shirt on back-to-front, and had forgone his boots entirely. But despite his obvious haste, he looked at her first, not the fuming chief. A small, wondering smile curved his lips.
“Hi,” he said softly.
The mate bond filled her with light.
“Hi,” she said, smiling back.
“Don’t mind me,” Buck said loudly. “I mean, I’m just your boss. No one important.”
Rory ripped himself away from her, straightening into something that wasn’t far off a military salute. “I’m sorry I didn’t report to you earlier, chief.”
Buck gave him a level look. “Didn’t have time?”
Rory colored under his tan. “It was, uh, a very busy night.”
“Well, I hope you found time in your packed schedule for some actual sleep, because it’s going to be a busier day.” Buck shook his grizzled head. “Much as I’m dying to hear this semi-mythical report, it’ll have to wait a few more hours. Come on, lovebirds. All-crew meeting, right now.”
Edith’s heart missed a beat. “You mean…?”
“Yep.” He turned away. “We’ve got a wildfire.”
Chapter 30
Fire crowned the mountain. Liquid rivers of orange light trickled down the sides, dividing and multiplying as the blaze found more fuel. With no rain in the area for weeks, the forest was tinder-dry. The fire perched on the peak like a hungry dragon, eying the houses in the valley below.
And he’d brought his mate here.
His mate. Just thinking the words made his heart fill with awe and pride, even through his worry. He felt the mate bond glowing in his soul, twice as bright as the raging wildfire.
Rory snuck another glance at Edith, unable to stop herself. She was helping the rest of the squad set up the rough camp that would be their home while they fought the blaze. Even at this distance, her excitement was obvious. When she wasn’t carrying equipment, her hands swooped and darted in constant motion, wordlessly speaking her joy.
This was her dream. It was the same as his own—to protect people from the wildest forces in nature. To be the thin line between destruction and civilization.
She was going to march up there, into the very fires of hell, armed with nothing more than hand tools and dogged determination.
And he would lead her.
She’ll be fine, he tried to tell himself. She was far safer on his squad than any other wildfire crew. If the worst came to the worst, he could always snatch her up and fly her to safety. He could protect her.
But still, unease crawled down his spine.
He was so caught up in his inner turmoil, he almost didn’t react in time. Only shifter reflexes saved him. A flicker of motion, a sudden surge from his griffin—and he found himself holding a pinecone.
“That’s the closest I’ve ever got to hitting you.” Buck had his arm half-cocked, another missile ready to launch. “You want to pay attention while I explain how we’re all going to avoid becoming deep fried chicken bits today, or have you got better things to do?”
“Sorry chief.” With superhuman effort, Rory managed to turn his back on Edith. “I’m listening.”
Buck grunted, looking like he might be considering hurling another pinecone at his head anyway. “As I was saying, Control’s tried to drop smokejumpers in, but the fly-boys couldn’t cope with the winds up there. They’re scrambling more ground teams as fast as they can, but for the moment, we’re the cavalry.”
“Lucky this one is practically in our backyard.” Tanner cast a worried glance at the distant town. “Know some nice folks down there in Blackbeck. Has an evac order gone out?”
“Yeah, local sheriffs are getting people to pack up and skedaddle. Let’s try and make sure they’ve all got homes to come back to.” Buck hunkered down, spreading a map out on the ground. “We’ve got two choices. Play it safe and let the fire have its way with the trees while we cut line lower down, or race the blaze and try to save as much of the forest as possible.”
“We should cut it off high up,” Rory said without hesitation. He traced a line across the map. “Here.”
Tanner sucked his teeth. “That’s awfully close to the head, Rory. No room for mistakes.”
“We can do it.” He caught Buck’s eye meaningfully. “Send my squad in, on our own. We’ll strike hard and fast. B and C can cut line lower down, just in case it gets away from us.”
“No,” Seth said, predictably. No matter how sensible and obvious a plan was, if it came from Rory, the C-squad boss always disagreed.
What Seth said next, though, surprised Rory. “My squad should go with Rory’s.”
“I don’t need any help,” Rory said, annoyed. “We work better on our own.”
Buck glanced up at them both, eyes narrowing. “I do not have time for pissing contests today, boys. Rory, you’ll go faster with C-squad following along to make good. Seth, if you go in, it’ll be to support Rory’s squad. He’ll be in charge. You going to be able to follow his orders without any lip?”
Seth pushed his mirrored aviators a bit higher. What little of h
is face Rory could see looked pale and gaunt. He didn’t know how the C-squad boss had gotten back from Antler the previous night, and didn’t much care. An all-night hike wasn’t nearly enough punishment for what he’d done to Edith.
“Yes,” Seth said, to Rory’s astonishment. He gestured at the burning mountain. “That’s what’s important. We have to save the forest.”
Tanner’s eyebrows ascended. “Since when do you care about trees?”
“It’s old,” Seth sounded oddly intense. His whole body was wound tight. It was difficult to tell, but Rory thought his hidden gaze was fixed on the distant fire. “Untouched. Mustn’t burn.”
“We’d have a hell of an easier time if someone had let it burn,” Buck said grumpily. “Buttload of dead crap in that undergrowth. We should have been doing controlled burns on this place years ago, but it’s a nature reserve or something. Never could get approval. Now it’s just a giant all-you-can-eat buffet for that damn fire.”
“So do we abandon it?” Tanner asked.
“No.” Rory found himself saying the word simultaneously with Seth. It was pretty much the first time the two of them had ever agreed on anything.
He’d thought that humiliating Seth by using his alpha voice would have made the C-squad boss even more pissed off with him, but the opposite seemed to be true. Seth was staying as far away from him as possible, shoulders hunched and cap drawn down as though trying to hide under the brim.
Huh. Maybe Blaise was right, Rory thought, bemused. Should have kicked his ass a long time ago.
Buck heaved a sigh. “Okay, we’ll try it Rory and Seth’s way. A-squad goes first with rough cuts, with C-squad following behind to shore up. Tanner, you start a backup line at the foot. I’m going to stay here where I can see everything, and coordinate on the radio. If I yell, you boys pull out fast, got it? Brief your squads. Make sure everyone’s bringing their best game, because there’s no margin for error on this one.”
Rory hung back as Tanner and Seth headed to their respective teams. “Chief. Do we know how the fire started yet?”
“No. It was only just spotted at ass o’clock this morning, so the sheriffs haven’t had time to sniff around for any guilty kids or careless campers.” Buck shot him a keen look. “Why? You got a hunch?”
“Yeah. My animal’s restless.” The back of his neck prickled. He resisted the urge to glance over his shoulder at Edith again.
He studied the map instead, following the route from Thunder Mountain to their current location. It was practically in their backyard, only a few hours’ drive from base. Much closer than the lightning-creature had dared to come before, but still…
“It was heading this way.” He traced a straight line from Antler to Blackbeck. “The lightning-creature, I mean. When I chased it away from our home turf, this is the direction it fled. I think it’s responsible for this fire.”
Buck folded his map decisively. “Then we’ve definitely got to cut this sucker off early.”
“Why?”
Buck’s smile gleamed like a knife. “Because in every case where its fires were caught and contained straight away…it came back to restart them.”
Chapter 31
They weren’t going fast enough.
Edith dug and scraped at the back of the squad, her worry growing as the sun arced through the sky. She knew from her years as a fire watcher exactly how fast a blaze would spread in these conditions. As they cut line, she kept a running mental map in her head, comparing their progress to the rate that the fire was advancing.
They weren’t going to make it.
Ironically, the squad was working too hard. They were cutting too wide. And they weren’t pacing themselves properly, either. They were clearing too much. At her position right at the back, behind Wystan, she barely had anything to do, the line already scraped to bare earth by the superhuman efforts of the shifters ahead of her.
Seth and C-squad, following along a few hundred feet behind them, were completely redundant. She was amazed he hadn’t caught up with them yet, or at least sent a runner ahead to demand to know why they weren’t leaving any work for his squad. Then again, it was Seth. He was probably dawdling deliberately, enjoying getting paid for doing nothing.
She’d always had an intuitive grasp of numbers and equations. She modeled variations in her mind like a computer simulation—a line four inches narrower would still hold back the fire, and would let them advance that critical bit faster.
She bit her lip, fighting the urge to say something. People hated being told that they were doing things wrong. It was one of the first social rules she’d learned, painfully.
Rory had to know what he was doing. He was a veteran hotshot. It wasn’t her place to criticize his leadership, even if she was his mate. She was the newest on the squad, a rookie, and only human to boot.
He’d taken lead, as he always did. Normally he handled his chainsaw with ease, but today his cuts were rushed, sloppy. He was trying to do too much at once—watch the sky, judge the line, monitor the fire, check in with Buck on the radio, supervise the squad.
And still, every few minutes, he looked round at her. As though she was his most pressing concern.
It was sweet. And also stupid.
He wasn’t the only one who was distracted. Callum was nowhere near his usual precise self. His head snapped round at every noise. At one point, he’d been so busy staring into the forest, he’d embedded his Pulaski deep into a stump. It had taken three of them to get it free again.
She edged closer to Wystan, who was just ahead of her in the line. He’d fallen a little bit behind the others, battling a stubborn tree root.
“I think you should check on Cal,” she said, keeping her voice low. “I’m worried he might still have a concussion. He’s not acting himself.”
“He’s fine. Just preoccupied.” Wystan didn’t pause chopping at the root. “Rory has him constantly monitoring the position of every animal bigger than a beetle for a two mile radius.”
“He’s doing what?”
“It’s his special power. Most mythic shifters have one. He’s watching out for our mysterious lightning-throwing friend, and also making sure no surprise bears or hares or anything else decide to make our day even more interesting.”
“Oh. Um.” The way he was bashing at the root was setting her teeth on edge. She had to say something. “Wystan, you want to leave this one to me?”
His Pulaski whistled through the air with inhuman strength, finally cleaving through the gnarled wood. “I can handle it.”
“I didn’t mean to imply that you can’t. But it’ll go faster if we share out the work.”
“I may not have any useful powers, but I’m still a shifter,” Wystan snapped. “I am considerably stronger than you. And don’t stand so close to me.”
His unexpected attack made her blink. It was so out of character for him that she was more startled than hurt.
Before she could come up with a response, he sighed, letting his tool drop. “My sincere apologies, Edith. I’m appallingly cranky. It’s something of a strain for me to be around people who have recently been…” He cleared his throat. “Er, intimate. It’s a unicorn thing.”
“Oh! Like in the legends, where unicorns can only be approached by virgins?”
A blush crept up his pale features. “I’m not that badly affected. My father used to be crippled by migraines in this sort of situation. I just get a bit irritable. Normally I’d manage it better, but I’m not my best self today. I didn’t get much sleep. Joe is not the most restful person with whom to share a cabin.”
Edith glanced over at Joe, who was working with Fenrir to drag cut branches safely away from the fireline. The sea dragon also wasn’t his usual self, going about his tasks without a word of complaint or a single terrible joke. She’d thought he was just focusing on the job, but now she realized his dark skin was ashen with more than just fallout from the wildfire.
“He doesn’t look like he slept well either,” sh
e said.
“Nightmares, I believe. Though about what, I don’t know. Whatever he was yelling was in sea dragon language.” Wystan rubbed his forehead. “I suppose the attack last night has put us all on edge.”
He was right. The whole squad was acting strange. Fenrir was trotting around with his usual alert energy, but his tail was low and wary rather than waving like a flag. The fur on his neck bristled under his harness. And as for Blaise…
She barely seemed to be aware of any of them. She’d been laughing and relaxed at the start of the job, but her confident air had evaporated as the line lengthened. Now she hacked at the ground with single-minded focus, as though the forest floor had done her a personal injury.
Maybe Blaise was just tense because she too had figured out that they weren’t cutting line fast enough. But in that case, why hadn’t she said anything? In training, she’d never hesitated to comment if she felt someone wasn’t performing their best. Everyone respected her.
Yes, Edith decided with a twinge of relief. Blaise should be the one to quietly point out to Rory that they needed to change their strategy. She was a confident veteran firefighter, and a shifter. He would listen to his old friend.
She sidled over to Blaise and cleared her throat. The other woman didn’t look up.
“Blaise.” When Blaise didn’t react, she tentatively put a hand on her arm, stopping her swing. “Blaise? Can we…”
She trailed off. Blaise’s bicep was as rigid as iron. She was gripping her Pulaski so tightly, Edith could see her hands shaking. Her breath rasped between her teeth.
Edith knew only too well what an imminent meltdown looked like. She grabbed Blaise’s tool, wrenching it away. “Blaise!”
Blaise’s eyes were wide and unfocused. Flames reflected in their dark depths…even though she was facing away from the approaching fire.
“Burning,” she said dreamily. “Burning.”
“Rory!” Edith shrieked.
He was at her side so fast, his chainsaw blade hadn’t come to a complete stop. He took one look at Blaise and threw the tool aside. He snapped his fingers in front of her slack face.